Hi everyone, and welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来【极客时间】. Hi, Brad.

Hey, lulu.

So today I thought we can talk about something spooky.

Like supernatural, ghost, vampires?

No, actually spooky, but in a geeky way.

All right. What are you thinking?

I'm thinking we should talk about liminal space.

Woo. That's always a fun topic. Hahahaha.

Yeah. I know that you have heard of this.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Emm. Liminal space可能对于我们很多听众小伙伴会是一个很陌生的概念, 即使用中文说出来, 你仍然会觉得很陌生。

但是如果你喜欢游戏啊什么的这种之类的, 或者也是一个geek的话, 你应该听过这个中文被翻译成阈限空间, 就是阈值的阈，阈限空间. Liminal spaces, it's actually getting really popular right now.

Yeah. You see lots of videos on YouTube about it.

Emm. On Chinese social media, well, I mean, within certain geeky circles, very popular. Haha, I think it's very popular on like Bilibili. So Brad give us a definition. What is a liminal space?

Basically, it's kind of like, it's an empty space that gives you a feeling that it's abandoned and eerie. You feel like you've been there before, but because it's abandoned, you kind of feel like you shouldn't be there, but when you think about a liminal space, like the whole idea, like liminal, is something that's translated as being the threshold between two places kind of like a doorway.

And so when you're kind of like in this transition, when you go from a world where there's lots of people, and then you go into this place where it seems like it's empty and abandoned. It's that whole feeling, it's like “I shouldn't be here. There's something wrong.” You can also think about it like more psychological terms. It's a place where it's a time in your life when you're going through a transition.

Transition.

Maybe from childhood to adulthood, or just any type of change in your life can be a liminal space.

Yeah. Liminal space它有很多的这个含义.

但是，现在大家看到那些有点恐怖游戏里面那种liminal space, 基本上，就是没有人的空间, 比如说 abandoned houses, abandoned hallway, abandoned mall, 然后像Brad刚才说的,这些地方, 虽然没有真正有怪物出现, 但是就会让你感觉下一秒，就这个地方会出现什么样的事情。你会觉得非常诡异, 你会觉得非常的不舒适。

I think they've also described liminal space as this space deep in our psyche, it's like the space between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Yeah.

This is why when you are talking about the place of transition, and like it's a space between two places. This is why it's very unsettling. I think this is the word probably that best used to describe liminal space, it’s very unsettling.

Definitely, unsettling or eerie, that kind of feeling.

Yeah. So let's talk about everyday liminal spaces, actually they’re everywhere in our life.

Yeah. I mentioned a doorway. Oftentimes when people have something on their mind, they walk through a doorway. They forget what they were doing and why they were going into that room. That's kind of just because like your brain goes through this transition when you walk through a doorway, aside from doorways, stairways, hallways, bridges, a house when someone's moved out and there's no one has come back in yet. This is also a liminal space.

Like abandoned space as well.

Yeah.

Like abandoned mall, abandoned hospital. All of these are rich soil for all of these horror films, actually I’m a huge fan of the horror genre. I mean, I've been watching horror films for all these years, like before I never really encountered the word liminal space, but a lot of those unsettling feelings that I got watching these all sorts of horror, a lot of them is because they're linked with liminal space. Even when no monster’s jumping out, it's still like abandoned house. Why do we find abandoned house, abandoned malls? Spooky or eerie. Right? It's the idea of liminal space.

Yeah.

And I don't know if it's just me or I want to ask you, do you find stairways, staircase, 就那个楼梯， do you find it spooky?

Haha. For me, it has to be a stairway that's like spiralling downwards, because as you walk down or walk up, you can't really see what's in front of you beyond like the 10 or20 feet in front of you, you spirals around, and something could be hiding there, especially if no one else is in the stairway, if you hear something and it's another person, that's fine.

But when you hear something rattling or anything, you're like “what is that?” You can't see it. So it's just creepy.

Yeah, exactly. A piece of advice. I remember years ago I was in London, and there was this really, really deep underground station, a subway station. It's this kind of spiral stairways, and really probably going a good ten stories high or deep into the ground, it’s really spooky. I think I would have been totally spooked out if there weren't other people also going down, most people took the lift, the elevator, but I was one of the dumb dumbs that went down the staircase.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, and then you also mentioned bridges. And bridges, that's very obvious, right? It's a way it's like a connection between worlds.

Yeah. Oftentimes when people in movies or folklore, when people are transitioning from this life to the next, or from dimension to another dimension, there's like a bridge that kind of goes there.

And so we often think of bridges as being like a way between two worlds. And so when you see a bridge that's very big and there's fog and you can't see the other side, that's a really like creepy thing, especially because you're like what is on the other side, what is there?

Yeah.

Another actual location that often gives me that liminal space feeling is abandoned malls.

Mhm, yeah. If you watch a lot of videos online, you can see Tiktok videos about in an abandoned mall, someone they're staying in an Airbnb, and they found a doorway that was kind of hidden. They went inside. And there was this old abandoned mall that was underground. And it just had to happen to have a connection to their building and then someone built a house, but it was just kind of they were starting to walk around and they were like “am I supposed to be here? Can I be here?” And so it was confusing.

Yeah. The reason why it's confusing, and the reason why it's considered a liminal space is it is familiar. I mean, it's not like a spaceship, it's a completely new place. It is familiar and strange since it looks like a place we have been, because we have all been to malls before.

But since it's empty and it gives this forbidding like “it's like a combination of Deja Vu, a sense of nostalgia就有既视感, but it's also like really foreboding.

Yeah. I mean like if you grew up and you went to the mall on a regular basis, whenever you went to the mall, it was full of people. All the stores were open, people walking around.

But you walk into a mall nowadays if there's only a couple of shops open up that you're going to get a similar feeling. But if you go into a mall that's completely shut down, you can be like “why was this shut down? why are the stores not open? what is going on?”

And so that's gonna set off triggers in your mind. Even if it's just a supermarket at night and you're walking through trying to buy a few things, but there's maybe a couple workers, but you like you're walking around, you don't really see anyone. You're like “where is everyone?”

This is the eerie feeling that is often linked to this liminal spaces. I think even office technically can be linked with that feeling.

Yeah.

Okay. But before we wrap up this episode, let's mention a few more liminal spaces in our lives. I mean, so far we've been focusing on the actual physical liminal spaces like doorways and staircases, bridges, abandoned malls. But they are also like emotional liminal spaces, no?

Right. So anytime you're going through a significant change in your life, especially if something bad has happened, like your family is going through a divorce or there was loss of a loved one. Any time when you're going through a big change like that, you're basically going through a liminal space in your mind.

There's a big change going on. And so everything that's going on around you can be connected to being similar to being in one of these physical liminal spaces.

Yeah, transitioning in your life, literal transition, loss of a loved one, divorce.

But there are also things, I think, like making a big decision, and now for example, trying to change career, going for a career change. That is a big decision in life, and there are so many uncertainties. Sometimes it can also be unsettling, because technically you're also in a liminal space.

For sure. Like anytime you're making a decision and that decision is going to have a big impact on your life in your future. And you don't know what's going to happen when you finally have to sit down and make the decision. That's just like going through any other type of change. You know, you're afraid you're kind of lost. You're in a place where you're like “I don't know. Am I supposed to be here? Am I supposed to be doing this? Is this going to be good for me?” Yeah.

Yeah, it's very unsettling because there's no certainty. There's no sense of certainty in that. It's all uncertainty.

Mhm. Yeah. When I left Beijing to move to Japan, I had the same feeling because I was like “I have a job. But I'm leaving and going and trying to do something new. I don't have a full time job anymore. Am I gonna be able to make it work the same type of thing?”

Yeah, I think it's very, very common, especially when you're relocating or when you're switching to another job or another even career path.

Okay. So let's wrap up here. This basic episode, Brad and I, we were discussing the concept of liminal spaces, different types of liminal spaces. And If you have heard of this or if you, now you feel like you understand it a bit more, leave us a comment about what is the liminal space that you are scared of the most.

Yeah, or leave us any comments on the topic. I think in the advanced episode, we can give a few examples, for example, works, games and things that got liminal space really popular.

All right. So I'll see you in the next episode.

We'll see you in the advanced episode.Bye.

Bye, everyone.